


richie tozier's farewell anthology

by beepbeeprichie (ellewriteswrongs)



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canonical Character Death, Childhood Friends, Fluff and Angst, I just love him a lot, IT Chapter Two Spoilers, M/M, Past Character Death, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris Are Best Friends, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier-centric, Soft Richie Tozier, Song Lyrics, i honestly don't know what else to tag without spoiling this but just read it, just a bunch of sad adults crying about their childhood trauma, musician!richie au, singer-songwriter!richie au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:07:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21529549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellewriteswrongs/pseuds/beepbeeprichie
Summary: a post-chapter 2 singer-songwriter!richie au because why not
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	1. richie tozier's farewell anthology

**Author's Note:**

> hi y'all, i'm back on my bullshit
> 
> in the next installment of: 'i make richie sad for no reason', here's richie as a musician being emo for 7 chapters

“Hey there Philly,” Richie spoke, his voice booming through the amphitheater. The crowd cheered back as he dragged his feet across the stage. The natural high that carried him across stages around the world for years was gone, now replaced with emptiness and the grounding weight that none of it mattered anymore. “How’s everybody doin’ tonight?”

He didn’t much mind that the response was pure excitement, instead opting to force out a small smile for appearance’s sake. He glanced at the wings on the opposite side of the stage where his friends stood. All four of them. The only ones left. 

“It’s been a long damn time, huh?” Mild laughter and cheers. “After all those years, this was always my favorite venue I ever played and yet I only played here once. I never quite knew why, no offense, but I could never tell what it was about this place that was so special.”

He swallowed deeply, stepping back to sit down on a stool placed beside his microphone stand. 

“I know now, though. I know why and part of me wishes I didn’t,” he continues, knowing the audience was growing increasingly uncomfortable by his depressing nature and general lack of stage presence. “My favorite person in the whole world came to the only show I ever played here and I never even knew until ten years later.”

The crowd awed and cheered at that, which he had to admit felt nicer than he had expected. 

“I’m gonna’ start by telling all of you a little story though,” he explained, his hands shaking as they held the microphone. “I know you came for the big ‘comeback show’ and all that, and I’m sorry to disappoint everybody, but the music will come later, I promise. I just...I waited too long to say this last time and I’m not making that mistake again.”

The silence that followed was suffocating as he glanced into the wings at saw his friends there smiling encouragingly back at him. 

“My family hates me. I know, that’s probably not what anybody was expecting me to start with, but my parents haven’t spoken to me since I moved out at eighteen and never looked back. It’s okay, though. Seriously, fuck them,” he starts, and he can hear the other Losers laughing in the wings. “My _real_ family, though, those guys are some of the greatest people you could ever have the pleasure of meeting.” The audience cheers, likely out of more relief than actual enthusiasm. “My best friends in the whole world are the only family I’ve ever needed and it’s because of them that I even started doing this whole music thing in the first place.”

“When I was four years old, I made my first friend. His name was Stanley and our families went to the same synagogue together so he and I would sit together and I’d show him the comic books I’d snagged from the waiting room of my dad’s dentistry clinic and we’d ignore everyone else in the building.” The crowd laughed and Richie smiled a little. “In the basement, they used to hold local activity classes for the nearby senior center and one of the things they had down there was a piano. We would sneak down there while our parents were actually participating, but that was where I taught myself how to play the piano with the limited instructional books they had and just general trial and error. Stan the Man and I were each other’s only friends until we were about seven when we started kindergarten, and our little club was first formed. The Losers Club, to be exact.”

“Now, we didn’t really earn the title of ‘Loser’ until we met Bill...and Eddie,” he continued, biting his lip to avoid getting choked up. “Now, before that, neither Stanley nor I had really met any kids other than the other ones who came to Temple, but as it turned out, kids did _not_ particularly like us. In fact, they seemed to think we were the absolute scum of the Earth, but the cool thing was that they thought that about Bill and Eddie too. I used to have the most ridiculous little glasses and my teeth came in so wonky that I had braces for four years from the time I was eleven. Stan’s family ran the Temple service and his dad was the Rabbi, so he used to wear a yarmulke everywhere, which other kids definitely did not understand or respect in any way. Bill had, and still has, a stutter. It was way worse when he was a kid, but that only made them tease him more. Eddie, on the other hand, was a bit harder to unpack. His mom had Munchausen’s by Proxy, so he was constantly getting babied by all the teachers, which he hated, but he also had asthma, which was just social suicide apparently when it came to the evil second graders that used to torment us.” He laughed along with the audience, loosening up a little. 

“The bullying didn’t really stop after that, but we found that when the four of us stuck together, there were as many of us as there were of the group of older kids that used to be the worst of the bunch. Practically everyone hated us, which was basically the only thing we all had in common at first, and it was the only reason we ever gained any more friends. We met Ben, Beverly, and Mike in 1989 and, you guessed it, they were also Losers.” The audience continued to laugh at his stories, which was nice considering he had tried and failed to jumpstart a comedy career in college, but he was sure it wouldn’t last too much longer. “Mike was homeschooled and lived on this super dope farm just outside of the town we lived in where we all used to hang out all the time and when we were fifteen, we all found out that he could play the guitar. I practically begged him to teach me and for the next year and a half, I saved up working any odd jobs I could find so that I could afford a guitar of my own.”

“I learned everything I know about performing from the six of them. I used to play them stupid songs on the guitar in our little clubhouse that Ben built, and I would pester them with awful original songs constantly before I took a class on songwriting in college and actually learned how to write lyrics that actually made sense,” he joked, to which the audience cheered at the mention of his music. “It’s still crazy to me that people actually like the music I make because as far as I’m concerned, I have _barely_ improved since then and that’s not saying much.”

He could hear Ben’s laugh clear as day in his ear, which always made him smile. 

“But everything I’ve done with my life has been for them. Every second of it. I wouldn’t have made it anywhere in life if it weren’t for them, so now that I have, I do it for them.” The audience roared. “Every song is about at least one of them in some way. Every single one. I don’t even think they know that, but it’s true.”

“In fact, most of the songs I’ve written are about one of them in particular. For over two decades, we were all apart. We lost contact with each other for years and looking back on it now, I wrote songs about one person for so long without even realizing I was doing it.” He breathed deeply and shakily, glancing once more at his friends. “And that’s where this story takes a bit of a turn. Try to stick with me because this is gonna’ suck really bad, but it’ll all make sense before you know it.”

The seconds felt like hours as he prepared himself to say what was about to come next. 

“I’m gay, as I’m sure many of you suspected.” He trembled as he spoke. “I’ve only said that one other time in my entire life, so there it is again,” he exhaled shakily. The audience waited until he finished before cheering louder than he had ever heard before. This tiny venue of under two hundred people that somehow cheered louder than Radio City. “Thank you. Thank you, seriously. I can’t...I can’t even begin to explain how much that means to me.”

The applause just kept coming. 

“Sadly, there is actually another story that comes after that,” he smiled, more genuinely than he had in over a year. “And it starts with how I realized that very fact I just told all of you.”

“Eddie Kaspbrak is the greatest man I’ve ever known in my entire life and I went on tour with fucking _Hozier_ , also known as God himself,” he started, to which the audience laughed loudly. “He’s the smartest man I’ve ever met, he’s hilarious and an asshole, but he’s also braver than anyone else in the world and I will defend the fact as long as I live and longer.”

The whoops and cheers that followed were exclusively coming from the wings. 

“Throughout my life, I have only loved one person. I have loved Eddie Kaspbrak since I was thirteen years old and I will love him until the day I die. There is no one quite like him and there is no one who deserved to be loved the way he did,” he spoke confidently, but quietly, as if on the brink of tears. “He made me feel like I was worth more than what our shitty town told me I could be and he was the first person who ever told me they believed I could make it one day.”

The crowd seemed to be picking up on what had happened, some cheering and aww-ing still filling the air. 

“But now that you know all of that...I have nothing left to hide,” he finished, his heart pounding. “This will be the last show I ever perform and it’s for all of them. I’ve written a song for each of them and that’s what I’m going to be performing for all of you tonight.” The Losers in the wings whooped and cheered until the audience caught on and joined in. 

“I hope you enjoy the show, but more than anything else, I hope you pay attention to these words because it’s the truest thing I’ll ever say. I’ve never meant anything more than how I mean the words in these six songs. The whole reason why I had a mandatory phone and camera check at the door is just because, well, these songs aren’t for the internet. They’re not meant to be bought and sold or spread on Twitter, or anything like that. These songs are for six pairs of ears and the rest of you are here because I feel like I owe it to everyone, at least a little bit, to explain what I’m doing.”

He stood up, grabbed his guitar, and sat back down. 

“So without further ado, here goes nothing. Track _numero uno_ of the ole’ Richie Tozier farewell album.”

He waved the other Losers onto the stage to sit down on the seats he’d placed out their earlier, and they wrapped their arms around each other.


	2. bill denbrough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this song is called 'brothers' by penny and sparrow, but let's just pretend i wrote it for this fic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> each chapter after this will be pretty short because they're mostly song lyrics, but i'm pretty sure this is the shortest song so the others will likely be a little bit longer than this:)

“This one’s for you, Big Bill. I love you, brother.”

The crowd cheered as the lights began to dim and fade into a soft blue. Richie’s hands shook as he began to strum, but he smiled once at his friend, a shocked look on Bill’s face as he held tightly to his friends’ arms around him, his eyes watering. 

He started off strumming, his hands flowing easily over the song he’d played dozens of times throughout the past few months off the radar. 

_ If you cut your hand _

_ I’m gonna’ cut mine _

He sang, knowing immediately that the audience wouldn’t find his words as meaningful as his friends would, even if they were swaying and clapping along. 

_And then when we shake 'em_ _  
__We'll be the same color and type_

They had never needed blood to be brothers. That was always the thing he loved most about Bill. He made sure you knew that he would treat you like family no matter what. Maybe it was that his parents weren’t as present as they should be, or maybe it was losing Georgie, but Bill valued family over everything and made sure that his friends knew that he would protect them to the ends of the Earth if he had to.

_ You're smiling at me _

_ You put down the knife _

_ You say it's not time yet, instead _

_ Let's go walking outside _

God, there were so many things he wanted to say about Bill and he slaved away for hours writing this song, but none of it would ever be enough. He only hoped that, for a man of few spoken words, he would understand the meaning of the things that went unsaid. 

His fingers strummed with masterful rhythm and even though he knew he could play this song in his sleep, he didn’t dare to look away from his hands to meet Bill’s eyes. 

_ Don't give up _

_ Don't you quit on me _

_ Don't give up _

_ Don't you quit on me _

That was the thing most people didn’t know about Bill. Bill Denbrough had more resilience than anyone Richie had ever met and he’d never been so proud to see the man grow up to find himself happy and at peace with his demons. Finally free of the guilt that controlled his life for so many years. 

_ I'm still a boy _

_ But you're not the same _

It was ironic that he’d kept that lyric in even though Bill, more so than any of the rest of them, was very much so the same as he was as a kid. Maybe it said more about how quickly Bill had to grow up as a kid, but it was comforting to the rest of them. 

_ My skin still looks see-through _

_ And I feel underneath like a fake _

He had to poke fun at himself, come on. Who would he be without a few harmless digs at himself? Still, the real reason he wrote those lyrics was because of how Bill always responded to those kinds of jokes. The exact same way every single time. 

With a smile, telling him he was full of shit if he actually thought those things about himself. 

_ You're smiling again _

_ You show me a plate _

_ You say in that treehouse _

_ That all I had wrong was a date _

He remembered the day he first met Bill, both of them in the same first-grade class without their respective best friends, or only friends, at the time. Upon finding out that they had the same favorite color and that they both preferred Spider-Man comics to any other superhero, Richie proclaimed that they must be brothers. Bill, still an only child as his mother was pregnant with the baby that would soon become his younger brother Georgie, said that the only reason they weren’t twins was that they didn’t have the same birthday. Richie claimed the same thing one night in their clubhouse after fighting It for the first time. Bill had finally come to understand that Georgie wasn’t just missing, but Richie promised him he’d always have another brother to lean on. 

_ Don't give up _

_ Don't you quit on me _

_ Don't give up _

_ Don't you… _

When he finished out the closing chords of the song and the music began to fade out through the speakers, he could feel a little bit of the weight that held down his shoulders slowly fade away with the song. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you liked this, please let me know in the comments! beverly is coming next so i would love to hear y'all's guesses as to what her song is...;)
> 
> (i'll give you a hint, it's the only non-slow song of the whole group and it's a very popular rock song from 2000...)


	3. beverly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the platonic bevchie anthem we deserve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is actually the song 'absolutely' by nine days:)

“So hopefully that wasn’t too fucking depressing,” he joked somewhat humorlessly as the audience laughed a little. He held the microphone on the stand in front of him just to have something to do with his hands. “Because these are only going to get fucking sadder.” Slightly more laughter followed that time from everyone but his friends, who could tell exactly where it was all going. “This next one is probably going to seem like the least depressing of the bunch though, but if you actually listen to the lyrics you’ll know that I’m full of shit for saying that.”

He turned towards his friends again, this time standing up and approaching them, microphone in hand. He stopped in front of them all, hoping to preserve some of the surprise for the audience, but he kept his eyes locked on Beverly the entire time. 

“Hey Bevvie,” he spoke to her, out of the microphone’s range. The woman in questioned softened and she smiled up at him from her seat. “Be a dear and play with me one last time, would ya’?”

Beverly stared at him for a second before her face broke out into a smile. He held out his hand, which she took without hesitation, following the man on stage as the audience cheered. 

“So I’m sure quite a few of you know of Miss Marsh here,” Richie started. “But what most of you probably don’t know is that she and I used to jam together as kids when we were in high school. She played drums and I played guitar and we both played badly most of the time, but look at us now.” Bev laughed alone with him, her face red from embarrassment at the crowd’s excitement. “Now, feel free to say no because this is really stupid,” he prefaced, the audience laughing loudly. “But how do you feel about playing this song with me?” The crowd went wild. 

“Just for old time’s sake,” he added, a smile on his face and love in his eyes. 

“How could I ever say no to you, Rich,” Beverly caved, a grin on her face as Richie reached into a small bag on stage and pulled out a set of brand new drumsticks, handing them to his friend. 

“That’s my girl,” he said with a grin gesturing to the open drumset behind him, to which she excitedly sat down. “I hope you remember this one. I changed the words, but we wrote this beat together in sophomore year.”

Richie swapped his acoustic guitar out for an electric one covered in stickers and plugged it into the amp system before turning to the woman behind him. 

“Give me a hi-hat, babes,” he cued, to which Beverly hesitantly gave him a steady beat and he turned back to his microphone. 

_ This is the story of a girl _

_ Who cried a river and drowned the whole world _

_ And while she looks so sad in photographs _

_ I absolutely love her _

_ When she smiles _

The crowd went wild for the music that was so close to everything he usually released. The familiar tune was quickly recognized by the Losers, especially Bev, who joined into the song right on cue like they were sixteen-year-olds playing the song in the Derry High School music room all over again. Even as Richie began to sing the changed lyrics, she was so strongly transported back into the familiarity of the song that she didn’t even need to pay attention to playing as she listened to the words her friend had written. 

_ How many days in a year? _

_ She woke up with hope, but she only found tears _

_ And I can be so insincere _

_ Making her promises never for real _

_ As long as she stands there waiting _

_ Wearing the holes in the soles of her shoes _

_ How many days disappear? _

_ When you look in the mirror _

_ Say ‘hi’ to your shoes. _

She was sure that for most of her young life, Richie Tozier knew her soul better than anyone else in the world. Hell, he was her best friend. Even in the years spent apart, she would hear his songs on the radio and know deep down that the song about a girl with fiery red hair and cigarette burns on her hands was about her. 

_ Your clothes never wear as well the next day _

_ And your hair never falls in quite the same way _

_ You never seem to run out of things to say _

He saw her for who she was and loved that girl more than the version of her self that she showed to the rest of the world. Sure, her husband Ben was the same way, and she knew all of their friends had always thought the same about her, but there was always something different about the way Richie did. 

_ This is the story of a girl _

_ Who cried a river and drowned the whole world _

_ And while she looks so sad in photographs _

_ I absolutely love her _

_ When she smiles _

Maybe it was because he had such a way with words that he’d tell her she looked “bangin’” in a new outfit she had been shy about wearing around all of their friends, and then come over to her place later that day with working lyrics to a song about the interworkings of her soul and how she looked that day like held the stars in the palms of her hands and she had cried just listening to him read the words of the page. 

_ Now how many lovers would stay _

_ Just to put up with this shit day after day? _

_ How did we wind up this way _

_ Watching our mouths for the words that we say? _

God, there he went again, summing up her entire life into words so tragically beautiful you’d think he was some sort of Renaissance poet. She couldn’t remember the original lyrics they’d written together nearly twenty-five years ago, but she knew they didn’t matter when this was what they had been replaced with.

_As long as we stand here waiting_

_Wearing the clothes or the soles that we choose_

_ Now how do we get there today _

_ When we're walking too far for the price of our shoes? _

She actually laughed a little at that, knowing one of the first things Richie had said to her when they embarked on their mission to kill Pennywise was that her shoes looked way too expensive to be traipsing through the sewers in. He had been right, obviously, as they had been part of an “athleisure” line Tom had made her design simply because it was profitable at the time, but she took pleasure in destroying nice shoes and she knew he did too, from the looks of his nice leather boots that had been scribbled on and painted in an array of colors. 

_ Your clothes never wear as well the next day _

_ And your hair never falls in quite the same way _

_ But you never seem to run out of things to say _

It made her happy that he had kept the lyrics of the bridge the same as the original song they had written, that much she could remember. She could see it so clearly as they sat on the fire escape of Beverly’s apartment building with a small notebook of lyrics and crudely drawn out sheet music.

_ This is the story of a girl _

_ Who cried a river and drowned the whole world _

_ And while she looks so sad and lonely there _

_ I absolutely love her _

_ When she smiles _

She wondered for a brief moment if Richie had contacted Ben about writing this song about her, seeing as the one thing about her that Ben would always say was more beautiful than anything he’d seen was her smile. Or maybe he just thought the same thing. 

_ Your clothes never wear as well the next day _

_ And your hair never falls in quite the same way _

_ You never seem to run out of things to say _

The more the song went on, the more she could remember about how they wrote it together. The lyrics of the bridge had been about them both after one of their friends had pointed out that they always showed up to hang out looking like they had slept in their clothes and hadn’t brushed their equally wild curly hair. 

_ This is the story of a girl _

_ Who cried a river and drowned the whole world _

_ And while she looks so sad in photographs _

_ I absolutely love her _

Looking back at how people used to think the two friends were even remotely interested in each other romantically, she wasn’t too surprised. They loved each other to no end and sure, maybe in another life they would’ve lived happily ever after, but more so than anything else, they were like mirrors of each other. Closer to being the same person than a perfect match. 

_ This is the story of a girl _

_ A pretty face she hid from the world _

_ And while she looks so sad and lonely there _

_ I absolutely love her _

She always regretted how she hid after everything that happened with Bowers and her father. It was easier at the time to throw away anything that made her desirable to the people in her life, but it made her happy. She had always been so grateful that her friends had been able to treat her the same for all the years they’d known her, no matter what. 

_ This is the story of a girl _

_ Who cried a river and drowned the whole world _

_ And while she looks so sad in photographs _

_ I absolutely love her _

_ When she smiles _

As the song came to a close, she could feel the tears in her eyes and she wondered how long they had been on her face before she’d noticed. Still, she didn’t even care even though she was sure there was makeup running down her cheeks and puffing up her eyes. 

_ When she smiles _

After holding out the last note, she practically flew off her stool and scooped her friend up into her arms, holding him tightly as he lifted her feet off the ground. Her friends really knew her and in that moment, more so than any other point in her life, she knew that they were more of a family than anything she could ever want or need. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you guys liked this update! chapter 4 will be up soon...any guesses as to who it might be..?
> 
> please leave a comment or kudos if you liked this!! it means a lot!!

**Author's Note:**

> i'm gonna try to update this fairly quickly since the chapters after this intro will be fairly short, but we'll see how it goes and if people actually like this:)


End file.
